The Dust-Up
Legislation and all that stuff became a side-stream again at parliament this week as Labour hard man Trevor Mallard's corridor dust-up with Tau Henare stole all the headlines.
With conflicting accounts swirling around about what actually occurred, it will be interesting to see if any footage gets leaked to the media from one of the 100 plus brand new security cameras recently installed into the House of Representatives.
The Reshuffle
Off course, Mallard is expected to take some sort of portfolio hit when Labour's much anticipated cabinet reshuffle is announced sometime in the middle of this week, ahead of the annual Labour Party infomercial masquerading as a party conference.
All commentators have been tipping self-appointed Labour leader in waiting Shane Jones, Steve Chadwick, Maryan Street and one-year MP Charles Chauvel for promotion.
One often overlooked figure is the hardworking Mark Gosche, who, it must be remembered, only stood down from cabinet to care for his sick wife. If this seems like a shallow talent-pool, it must be remembered that not all of National's back bench MPs are ministers in waiting either.
Anyone who has ever witnessed school debating where the clever team member controls everybody else's speeches would have had the memories flood back when National's Simon Power had to whisper prompts to Kate Wilkinson in order for her to ask probing questions of the Serious Fraud Office in a select committee hearing.
But back to the reshuffle, here are a couple of tips: Jones to replace Parekura Horomia as Maori Affairs minister and, from "left-field", Phil Goff to replace Michael Cullen as Finance minister. Just remember, election year tax cuts.
Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill
Anyway, in the actual debating chamber, apart from Mallard-baiting, the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill had its third reading.
The unusual grouping of ACT, the Greens and the Maori Party all banded together in opposition to this bill, with a recent e-newsletter from Act's Heather Roy emphasising what her party sees as the heavy-handed and downright inconvenient nature of all this pandering to the fight against terror.
This bill does though in theory make it possible for the likes of environmental groups to be classed as terrorists with little oversight.
Crimes Amendment Bill
Contrasting with all this was the Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill, which had its third reading and featured an interesting set-to between Winston Peters and Rodney Hide about necrophilia.
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